43
by Bookbug Taz
Summary: Set immediately after the episode 42. Martha has dumped the fuel and the ship is safe, but how is the Doctor?


**Well, this is something I wrote a while back but never did anything with. I found it the other day and thought I would put it on here. It takes place immediately after the episode '42' where the10th Doctor and Martha land on a ship that is stuck on a collision course with a sun.**

**Usual Disclaimers: I don't own Doctor Who or anything else that I mention that belongs to anyone else. I am just borrowing him for a bit and will put him back as good as new when I have finished.  
**

The relief she felt as the fuel was dumped and the ship started moving away from the burning sun was unbelievable. She exhaled loudly and allowed herself to sag briefly against the rail. _He was right. Thank God he was right._ She jerked upright again as the ball of nervous tension slammed back into her stomach at the thought of the Doctor. Leaving the two men in the control room, she raced back down the halls._ Déjà vu! I'm sure I've just done this! _She pounded back down the hallway towards the infirmary, dread creeping in at the thought of what she might find there. The Doctor's screams and pain filled whispers still ringing in her ears.

"_I' m scared" he whispered. She clamped down on her own fears and tried not to let them show in her eyes as she looked at the Doctor and tried desperately to reassure him. He would be fine, he was always fine. He HAD to be fine._

She leaped over a raised doorway and rounded a corner. _Nearly there. _Trying to imagine that she would reach the infirmary and find him tinkering with one of the machines and declaring how he was fine and that he was more resilient than a mere human and that she shouldn't worry so much and.....

There....

He wasn't in the infirmary. As she ran down the last corridor, she saw a body slumped on the floor ahead of her. _He's not moving! Oh God – he's not moving!_ All her desperately optimistic hopes crashed down around her as she raced towards him. And then...._YES!!!! _

He looked up and slowly rose, shakily, very shakily, to his feet. And he grinned.

She ran straight into his embrace with out slowing down and he caught her and held her tight. All of the fears and emotions she had been holding in since the TARDIS first landed here, the emotions from when she thought herself lost in the escape pod and her worries for the Doctor, came bursting to the surface and he held her tightly as she cried and even managed to pick her briefly off the floor.

As she felt the rollercoaster of emotions die down and her awareness of the here and now reassert itself, she realised that the Doctor was shivering. In a flash her training took over and she mentally berated herself for not having checked on him first. He had been infected by an alien life form that seemed intent on burning his very essence out of him, half frozen and had still managed to come up with the plan that had eventually saved them. _Come on Martha. Pull yourself together, he's been through hell, remember your training...._

She pulled out of his arms and looked into his face. Her heart plummeted at what she saw. How he was standing upright was a mystery to her. She had never before seen the Doctor hurt, never seen him ill, never seen him lose. She realised that today she had seen the first two and come perilously close to seeing the third.

"I'm fine" he whispered, his voice destroyed by the screaming, the burning and the freezing. His face was grey and the white icicles lingering on his hair and clothes only made his bloodshot eyes stand out all the more. He looked exhausted. He looked in pain.

"Come on" she said gently "lets get you back to the infirmary and see just how 'fine' you are."

She could see him trying to scrape together some kind of argument against going but even as he started to open his mouth, his eyes glazed over and he started to collapse.

"Doctor!" She tried to catch him as he fell but he was heavier than he looked and she just about managed to avoid falling on top of him. There was a shout and Riley and Orin came running down the corridor towards her. "Shouldn't you be flying the ship?" she asked.

"No, the engine's fried. We're just drifting, nothing we can do about it. Is he ok?"

Martha was trying to find the Doctor's pulse which was so slow she almost couldn't feel the second heart beat. "We need to get him to the infirmary. Quickly." Martha's mind raced as she tried to figure out what was wrong with him. It could be any number of things – hypothermia, exhaustion…. Then she stopped. He's an alien. He looks human but he is completely different. How do I know what medicines to give him, what procedures to do? All of a sudden she felt like she was a first year student on her first day at medical school. Completely clueless. _What do I do? I know nothing about his physiology. What can I do?_

As they reached under his arms to pick him up, he stirred and let out a moan. Martha cupped his face in her hands, "Doctor? Come on Doctor, stay with me!" A note of desperation sounded in her voice, "I need your help. Come on! You need to tell me what to do!"

His eyes rolled in his head as he fought to focus on her face. "T….TARD…IS." His voice was so quiet she has to put her face up to his in order to hear him. "N..need to …get … Tardis.."

"That where you came from?" Orin snorted. "You got no chance. That section's still way too hot to get anywhere near."

"Can't we….. I don't know… Beam it to a different part of the ship?" Martha asked desperately.

"Beam?" Riley looked at her confused. "What's a beam?"

"OK, no Star Trek then." Martha decided. "Black to Plan A. The infirmary."

They entered the infirmary and Riley and Orin deposited the Doctor on one of the beds at the back of the room. The Doctor was still shivering and the three set about removing the orange space suit and trying to warm him up. Martha had a quick look around the infirmary and decided that as she didn't know what half of the equipment was and also what it would do to the Doctor, all she could do was try to warm him up and get him to the Tardis as soon as possible.

Through all this, the Doctor kept drifting in and out of consciousness, trying to help where he could but mostly he lay with his eyes squeezed shut and tried to get his harsh breathing under control.

Finally out of the space suit, Riley disappeared and came back a few minutes later with some blankets from the crew quarters. "Thanks" Martha smiled at him gratefully.

"You a doctor?" he asked.

"Kinda," Martha let out a little laugh. "I am training to be doctor… not that the training is worth anything at the moment."

Riley looked at her. "How do you mean?"

"He's not human. I don't know what to do for him or anything!" She sighed and brushed the Doctor's fringe off his face.

"He's an alien?!" Riley looked at the Doctor in surprise. "But he looks human!"

Orlin came up behind Riley, "That's how he made it outside long enough to re magnetise the ship!"

"What? Outside what?" Martha had a sinking feeling that she knew the answer to that question. The stresses that must have put on his body must have been immense.

Orlin looked at the others and then back to the Doctor. "When you were in the escape pod, he demanded a space suit. He said that he had to boost the magnetic field of the ship and it would bring the pod back. The switch is on the outside of the ship. I told him that it was too dangerous, that this close to the Sun, the shield wouldn't protect him but he just shrugged me off and told me that he was doing it anyway." Now he looked at Martha, "That he didn't want to lose you."

Martha looked down at the Doctor. _He didn't want to lose me._ She knew that the Doctor would never return her feelings, that he still grieved for Rose when he thought she wasn't watching, but hearing someone else say it, made her feel like she wasn't just a passenger, that she did matter to him even though it was just as a friend.

"He went outside the ship? That might explain how he got infected in the first place."

"Are you sure it's all gone?" Riley asked nervously.

"Well, we're all still here." Martha replied sharply and instantly felt sorry. "Sorry. It's been a long day." She smiled at Riley and he shyly returned it. "He has had his eyes open and hasn't burned anything. He's in pain but it's nothing like he was before so that's a good sign."

"It's gone." A voice whispered hoarsely.

"Doctor! How do you feel? Is there anything I can do for you?" Martha brushed his sweat soaked hair from his face.

He took a breath, shut his eyes and tried to sit up. "I need to .... I can't..." Martha steadied him as he swayed on the table and fresh sweat broke out on his face. His face paled and Martha thought she would have to try and catch him again but he locked his hands on the edge of the bed and carried on in his efforts.

"Stay still would you!"

"Dizzy.... need to ..... up.."

She helped steady him as he sat up on the bed and panted. After a time he raised his head and looked at the remains of the crew. "It's gone." He repeated sounding hoarser than before. "It drained out of me when you dumped the fuel." He shut his eyes briefly and Martha couldn't help but notice that he had not let go of his death grip on the sides of the bed. Opening his eyes again, he looked at her. "Tardis?"

She shook her head. "The section where we landed is still too hot to get close to. Looks like we are stuck here for a bit more."

He wilted a bit and then straightened suddenly. His bloodshot eyes looked suddenly frantic and a look that Martha recognised from her patients on Earth crossed over his face. She darted off and returned quickly with a bucket just in time for the Doctor to empty the contents of his stomach into it. She rubbed the Doctor's back while she waited for him to finish. Riley and Orin excused themselves to go and check over the rest of the ship and see what sort of damage they had taken in the last hour.

After what seemed like ages, the Doctor finished and tried to straighten up. He gave up and allowed Martha to lower him back down to the bed where he curled into an almost foetal position and sighed softly. Martha pulled a chair up to the side of his bed and waited for him to regain enough control to open his eyes.

"Rest. Just need some rest." The Doctor murmured. He opened one of his eyes and looked at Martha before shutting it tightly again. "You ok? Not hurt?"

Martha smiled a sad smile and started to stroke his back. "I'm fine. Nothing a nice bath and a long sleep in a soft bed won't sort out. Don't you worry about me, ok? You just concentrate on you and getting you better."

The Doctor let out a sigh. "....m'sorry.... shouldn'ta ..come here... 'Nother dangerous one...." He shuddered briefly and wrapped his arms round himself a bit more. "Your mum'll kill me ..... 'nother slap...... Never used to happen, you know?.... Slaps from ...... mothers......" His voice drifted off as he fell asleep.

Martha stayed where she was stroking him softly and letting the tears fall. She would let him sleep for a bit and hopefully he would be better when he woke. She sniffed and pulled out her mobile. Looking at it for a while, she eventually lifted it to her ear. "Hello mum? Yeah it's me....... Yeah, sorry about before, was with a friend of mine and got a bit over emotional, you know how it is!...... No, I'm fine! Honest mum," she looked down as the Doctor sighed in his sleep and took her hand in his. "I'm fine."

**Well, that's it. Let me know what you think :)**


End file.
